The Competitive Advantage

June 12, 2013

7 neat, little marketing resources… and they’re all free

Small companies – like Harpeth Marketing – with limited resources, need to watch every penny.  Because of that, one of the things I’ve done is to hunt for free online resources that can help me to do my job better – whether that’s running my business or taking care of clients

We all know about the big, well-known, free tools – like Google, WordPress, YouTube, SurveyMonkey and the social media sites. But there exists a lot of lesser-known online tools that might do only one thing… but they’re easy to use and can support your marketing efforts.

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June 5, 2013

‘Start at the End’… a Book Review

I recently bought and read the book, Start at the End: How Companies Can Grow Bigger and Faster by Reversing their Business Plan, written by Dave Lavinsky.  On a scale of 1-10, I’d give it a 7 – pretty good.

The premise is all about crafting a business plan… but doing so by starting at end.  So, for example, rather than asking, “We’re a $2 million company now… what level can we grow to next year… and the year after that… and the year after that?,” it pushes us to ask, “What will my company look like in 10 years?  Now, how do I get there?”

May 30, 2013

Five everyday ways to grow your business

One of the biggest challenges that the leaders of every small and medium-sized research firm face is finding the time to get everything done. We wear many hats and are pulled in many different directions. As a result, marketing and sales often suffer – pushed to the bottom of our priority list.

So what happens? After realizing that we’re behind on business development, we decide to try something, like writing a blog. We get all excited about the benefits of blogging and commit to writing once a week, telling ourselves “That’ll be easy – it’ll only take half an hour every Friday afternoon.”

May 29, 2013

3 Unique Ways to Generate Content for a Competitive Advantage

Last week, I wrote about how to unblock writer’s block (by focusing on what your clients and prospects want to read about).

But if that’s the perspective you need… what sources do you use to come up with content?  Where does the information come from that you then write about?  For me, sometimes I’m just struck by everyday occurrences that trigger ideas, sometimes I draw on recent experiences with clients or vendors and other times, I just know what I know and I write about it.

However, if you’re looking for some new places to go to find some things to write about, let me give you three that work really well:

May 21, 2013

How to break down writer’s block and accelerate your content marketing.

Every (yes, every) Saturday morning since we opened the doors to Harpeth Marketing, I have gone to a local coffee shop (in fact, I’m here now as I write this) to work on things not necessarily related to taking care of clients.  One of those tasks is writing… for my blog, my monthly article for Quirk’s or developing an eBook.

But this week… I hit the wall.  After 60+ weeks of crankin’ it out… I didn’t know what to write about.  I went to my editorial calendar… but I hadn’t looked this far forward so no topics were listed.  What am I going to write about… what do I want to write about?

And then it hit me… that is not the question to be asking.  Then question is (and should always be)… what do my clients (and prospective clients) want to read about?  What’s important to them?  What do they care about?

May 16, 2013

Re-purpose… and extend the depth and breadth of your content marketing.

I recently delivered a presentation on marketing at the annual CASRO Management Conference in New Orleans.

It was called, “12 reasons why your marketing & sales might not be working and what you can do about it.”  Other than creating the PowerPoint presentation itself, it took me no time to develop… no time flushing out ideas, no time refining concepts, no time finalizing the content.

How was I so lucky? Easy… the presentation already existed.  It was based on an eBook I had published a few months earlier.  I simply took the content that had been developed for the eBook and ‘re-purposed’ it for the presentation.

May 7, 2013

Better, faster, cheaper… is it possible to deliver all 3 for a competitive advantage?

Creating strong client relationships is built on a 3-legged stool…

• Excellent service
• Low prices
• Great products/services

And the presumption has always been… you can deliver on two… but never on all three.  E.g. You can be fast and cheap – but the quality won’t be so great.  Or, you can turn it around quickly with great products – but it’ll cost you.

I have always believed this to be true – not just in MR but in every industry – until I went wine shopping with a friend of mine at Beltway Fine Wine & Spirits, just outside of Baltimore, Maryland.

April 30, 2013

A 5-step recipe to position your firm for a competitive advantage

At the risk of sounding like I’m a little full of myself, I’m going to toot my own horn… but only to make a point.

We had an inquiry from a good-size research firm in the U.K. recently, which was sort of unusual… since I don’t really do anything to try to build business there. So I was a little flattered.

During the introductory portion of the call (gotta love Skype!), my contact said that he reached out to me, “because you’re the most recognized name in marketing & sales in our industry in the UK.”  Are you kidding me?!  How did that happen?!